Health and Safety Regulations

There has been a considerable increase in the number of inquiries that I have received for the BS OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health & Safety Management certification. It seems that businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the need not only to meet current legislation but to keep their employees safe and morale high by demonstrating the ‘OH’ part (Occupational Health) as well as the safety element.

I have been offering Quality, Environmental and Information Security consultancy for many years but it became clear that I would need to also include Health & Safety Management Consultancy as part of the service that I offer to my clients.

Therefore, I enrolled in the BSI Certificate on Occupational Health & Safety Course, which is a distance learning system. There are eight modules provided on 3 CDs. Each module is concluded by an assignment, which on completion is marked by A BSI Tutor. Once marked,the next module is then commenced. The course material, both on the CD and in paper format was very good and gave me all the information I needed to pass the assignments. My Tutor was very complimentary about my assignments and there was only one instance where I needed to resubmit information.

Last Friday I received my BSI Certificate on Occupational Health & Safety and I am delighted that by taking this course my knowledge has been greatly improved. I can see that the Standard is not just about Safety but also encompasses Health and wellbeing.

All in all I am very pleased with the result.

Chris Eden FIBC, MISSA, ACQI is a director of Quality Matters Limited an established independent management consultancy based in Essex, UK which specialises in BS OHSAS 18001:2007 – Health & Safety Management consultancy.

Author: C Eden
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Assisted living

There is an ever growing requirement in today’s fast paced society by clients and customers to have quick, accurate building plans, floor plans, ‘as built’ plans and elevational drawings of buildings with which to plan their future building proposals, schemes and to comply with current legislation like the recent Government Directives where Local Authorities, schools, colleges and the like are required to take a much more proactive approach to the whole area of Property Management.

However, in older buildings, asbestos, water hygiene and associated issues cannot be determined unless accurate measured building surveys exist and are kept up to date. Fire Regulations and new laws to improve access to public buildings for people with disabilities have also raised the profile of property asset management at local level. These new regulations have highlighted that hundreds of councils ether do not have the original plans for many of their public buildings, or some premises have undergone so many extensions and refurbishments that the original drawings bear little relation to the present layout of the building. Local Authorities, are facing a race against time to arrange for all schools, colleges and nursing homes, to be surveyed with accurate drawings produced for their records. In the long run it will lead to greater efficiency of property management. Short term it may at first appear to be a huge burden, but Graeberts suite of Sitemaster software and Mobile CAD Surveying Ltd’s mobile kit is positioned to help alleviate the pressure and provide a highly productive surveying solution – with many benefits for the future.

In the private sector, pressure is constantly placed on Architects, Surveyors and Facilities/Project Managers to produce fast accurate drawings and data of existing and new or proposed schemes, this cannot be achieved unless a fast accurate method of producing existing floor plans is available. Now Sitemaster Building 4.1 is that programme which can produce very accurate finished floor plans in the same or less time than it takes to carry out a traditional site survey.

Before Sitemaster Building was available, it meant sending a surveyor to a project site, to carry out all the measuring and manual sketches by hand, before returning to his office to re-input all the data at their office into their office based CAD system. They may also have been required to go back to site on numerous occasions to correct inaccuracies that came to light during the CAD process, a very frequent event that causes major delays in time and much additional expense to the project team.

Compare that to what a surveyor would now achieve using Sitemaster Building suite of software. Now not only are they accurately measuring the properties, but they are generating in ‘real time’ the finished CAD drawings at the same time, no hand drawn sketches, no scribbled notes, no long drives back to the office to then generate the CAD plans but most importantly no return visits to correct inaccurate or missing dimensions. The property is therefore, measured, drawn in CAD and mailed back to the office in 50 per cent of the time previously taken, allowing the surveyor to go straight on to his next job.

It really is a Win Win situation for all parties!

Although there are FIVE software programmes in the Sitemaster Suite, Sitemaster Building is the main one that would be employed to facilitate the completion of CAD drawings for ‘as built’ or proposed floor plans and is therefore critical in the marketing of this range of software, to show a client/customer the features and range of this whole suite.

Some Technical information about Sitemaster Building:-

Professional building surveys

The extensive features of SiteMaster Building are especially interesting for users that need to create and deliver professional CAD drawings.

The layer management supports the combination of several floor plans in one single file. Heights of rooms, openings and symbols can be recorded and exported. Lasered distances are recorded in the background and saved on an extra layer for proofing purposes.

Draw fast and accurate walls (as single or double line), windows, doors and symbols. You can draw rectangular and circular columns, Recesses, chimneys and niches/ducts. SiteMaster Building offers you more than 250 CAD and numerous editing commands. The program features associative dimensioning and room area calculation. The Camera function allows you to insert icon-referenced inspection photos and images. SiteMaster Building contains an Image function for direct insertion and scaling of photos and image underlays with support for file formats as BMP, JPG, PNG, TIFF and RLC digital photos and images.

VoiceNotes that can easily been inserted eliminate time consuming text markup by providing record and playback of high-compressed audio notes and instructions directly inside your drawings.

AutoCAD-compatible drawing symbols / blocks can be used. The Visual Symbol Manager lets you insert symbols ? as-measured, referenced or free in the drawing. You can export Excel-compatible .csv files with room/area lists and room schedule reports/symbol lists. The Check Distance function lets you compare »as-built« distances to plan distances and record this comparison.

Experienced power users can use the visual Desktop, Menu and Toolbar Editor (DME2) and Lisp and/or C++ programming APIs to customize and extend the program furthermore.

Productivity levels and therefore profit margins are a concern to all, but in an industry where so much process is manual there only needs to be one error in measurement, or error in reading a measurement and the entire dimensions of a building will be inaccurate. The result? A return to site to re-measure and then back to the office to amend the CAD drawings. This is a huge resource cost and ultimately vastly decreases profit margins, affects customer service and increases costs for both the supplier and the client.

Anybody connected with design, construction, engineering, facilities management, manufacturing, mapping, real estate and related industries will know that. Local authorities, hospitals, schools, surveyors, facilities management companies – any sector involved in the management of multiple and large buildings that require compliance with Health and Safety regulations, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and those requiring Asset Registry services are now looking at how to shorten the “field-to-finish” time and associated cost.

In order to tempt the surveyor away from the traditional pen/paper/laser approach, any solution offered has to be quick, efficient and truly mobile. To persuade the money men it also has to offer a swift ROI – laser scanning options were seeing an increase in adoption a few years back but were still costly, and did not create the “as-built” drawings and floor plans in the field that would significantly cut design and planning time and cost.

The answer lies in incorporating handheld devices, software, Bluetooth and wireless technology – to produce a CAD drawing in front of your eyes. The measurements taken by laser meter and sent via Bluetooth into the software installed on the handheld device, produce a pictorial representation almost instantly. Human error is completely eliminated – the surveyor can see immediately if he has taken the measurement incorrectly. The solution also needs to offer the basics for internal building design, down to such detail as furniture if required, thereby producing a finished drawing in the field that can be emailed back to the office.

If we say the output is 100% accurate in half the time and at half the cost we’re pretty close. Productivity in simple terms is increased by 100% – the work is delivered in one day – therefore the profit is increased by 100%. Mobile technology has actually been proven to increase productivity by up to 1000% when compared to traditional design methods. And that’s not mentioning the less tangible increase in service level to the customer. A return on investment can be seen in some cases on day 1, but we say on average within 14-15 working days, including the cost of the hardware, software and training.

Suppliers of Mobile CAD Surveying solutions for the office and onsite. Survey and Draw fast, accurate CAD drawings in real time on site, with NO mistakes, save time and money using the Sitemaster Building suite of software products. Point – Shoot – Drawn – Instant Floor Plans.

We supply, demonstrate and provide training for all the Graebert CAD Anywhere Sitemaster software suite of products.

Point – Shoot – Drawn – Instant Floor Plans

For more on the Sitemaster range of products, please visit: http://mobilecadsurveying.co.uk

Sales: +44 (0) 871 789 2609
sales@mobilecadsurveying.co.uk

Author: Chris McNickle
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Pension

Recently while engaging in a routine Bible study, I discovered a Psalm that had some foundational truths that apply to many things, not the least of which is in preparing a home-school vision statement to guide and direct your home-school program. That isn’t an unusual revelation for those who are inclined to study the Bible for truth and meaning; however, I had not previously considered the points from Psalm 135 in this way before. With particular application to a home-school program, I believe that there are several things of which home-school parents should take note from this Psalm. These include preparing a heritage of learning for their children, demonstrating both judgment and compassion, striving for solid character first, and remembering that the leaders, in this case home-school parents, are given a double exhortation. This is quite a high calling, but one that would not be issued to home-school parents if it were not possible.

First, home-school families must always keep their focus in view. The intent, purpose, and driving force behind their efforts must be to give a heritage to their children – both for learning and life application. In an academic setting however, a home-school program must teach the behaviors and methods, the habits and techniques in which students will thrive, not just survive. Heritage implies richness and depth, and homeschooling families must ensure that they are adding depth and value to their program in order to apply these spiritual truths. Consider your home-school program. Are you adding tools by which your students, your children, will learn how to learn? Are you challenging them to take ownership of their own results so that they learn at an early age that they are responsible for developing their God-given talents and aptitudes? If you have relaxed in this area, or are not including this in your core values, stop and adjust; your children need to value the skills that you are gifting them with academically and understand the purpose.

Secondly, judgment and compassion go together. It is not fair to a student to allow only your compassion to drive your home-school assignments and standards. Home-school families have a high assessment of their own level of love for their children, but there must be standards of academic behavior. There must be benchmarks of learning and requirements to grow in wisdom. Home-school students should be held accountable to master material that they are learning; giving an arbitrary “A” for a completed assignment out of compassion or “love” will not prepare them for the standards of achievement that they will face in the post-home-school world. The contrary is true also. A home-school student has the exceptional opportunity to redo work in order to achieve the mastery level. Swift judgment in the form of a poor grade does not have to stop at a task not done correctly. Allow your student to know the compassion of redoing his or her work until it is done correctly. Over time, they will learn that judgment and compassion are both necessary and both realities of growing in stature and skill, as well as learn the benefits in doing their jobs well the first time.

In preparing your home-school vision statement, remember that empty values lead to empty character and ineffective leaders, another truth from Psalm 135. Ineffective leaders are nothing more than “silver and gold” to quote the Psalm and they have no life and breath in them. Home-school families should be striving for strong moral character in their students, full of life and vitality, and that process begins by actively cultivating students who see beyond their own lives. They need to understand the connectedness to a larger world around them. The earlier that they learn this, the stronger that they will be. Community and civic contribution should be encouraged and moral character must be trained.

And finally, as the final verses of this Psalm point out, these truths are about the students themselves, and they focus on the people that your children will become as adults, but leaders, in this case the home-school parents, are given a double exhortation. Parents, these truths must begin with you. You must be focused, intentional about creating a heritage, givers of judgment and compassion, strong in moral character and willing to be a leader in your home-school program. Lead by example. Learn new skills, grow in wisdom, seek new challenges and take on new tasks in an effort to show your children that learning never stops. If you have not ever created a vision statement for your home-school, I encourage you to do so. A guiding template can be found on our website for starting this process.

http://www.nationalhomeschoolacademy.com/default.aspx?name=nha.support

Setting an academic tone of vision, growth, purpose, character, and high ethical standards is not a calling for the faint at heart, but it is a worthy endeavor for those who want to apply these truths to their home-school program. The reward is limitless for what the future can hold for students raised in this kind of academic environment. This type of home-school program will produce leaders who are bold, confident, and caring – leaders who can effect change in any setting in which they find themselves.

If you would like to get more information on college prep, educational coaching, homeschooling, accelerated learning tools, or curricula for middle school and high school, please review our website, http://www.nationalhomeschoolacademy.com, or contact Camille Rodriquez directly at info@nationalhomeschoolacademy.com.

Author: Camille Rodriquez
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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